Max Brooks burst onto the literary world with his epic novel “World War Z,” after cutting his chops as an actor and writer for Saturday Night Live. “World War Z” was a smash hit and went to the big screen staring Brad Pitt. After a few more literary entries, Mr. Brooks newest novel attempts to take a big step into the world of Bigfoot phenomenon. Over a hundred films, a couple of television shows, and enough literature to cut down a sasquatch friendly forest, the obsession with the big furry freaks has been inundated into North American pop culture with limited success. Does Brooks once again catch lightning in a bottle with his portrayal of the age-old beast?
Kate Holland and her depressed husband Dan head to a very remote new age “green” community in the vast wilderness of Washington State. Thru Kate’s journal entries we are introduced to a modern hippie eclectic group of intellectuals who are trying to reinvent modern living with a community that is eco friendly and modern. After a cataclysmic volcanic eruption cuts off any route out of town and all the new age comforts that keep the small community connected to the world, the now stranded homo sapiens get some unexpected hairy guest. A war weary woman, Mostar, immediately takes to Kate and Dan and starts preparing them and attempts to prepare the rest of the group for an inevitable attack while also trying to put in place a system of survival as the town is likely to be cut off from the world for months. Some rock throwing, tree branch banging, and the attacks finally begin. Greenloop’s residents must try and reject their compassionate naturalistic lifestyles and rally together to fight off the sinister sasquatch tribe.
Allegedly it is next to impossible to make a good Bigfoot film, 2018’s Primal Rage being the rare exception. Guessing this holds true for Bigfoot books as well. By no means is “Devolution” a bad novel, it really is not a good one either. The major fault lies in the first-person style as the reader has the story told thru journal entries from the main character Kate. It would have been hard to capture the lightning pace of “World War Z” as told thru military and civilian recorded attacks, but Kate’s written record will have the reader hoping a great ape makes a quick meal of her. Her descriptive drab is broken up as the author telling the tale interjects with interviews from a national park ranger and a few completely useless reports from Kate’s brother who is searching the forest in the aftermath for her. The latter almost accidentally shows up at the end as if Brooks completely forgot about him. Brooks attempts to use an old metaphor of how even the softest of our species can revert to animalistic behavior when faced with extinction. A much stronger group of characters would have helped the suspension of disbelief, in truth or even vague fiction, this group would have been monkey meat by page thirty. Once the hairy tribe, well into act three, shows up for the rampage, “Devolution” does become a fun horror thriller; however, it is almost too little too late and the reader will probably be cheering more for the monsters than the unlikable humans. The Bigfoot lovers will take to this work, but most of the horror nation will feel underfed, like a monkey at the zoo with a sour batch of bananas.
SCREAM SCORE: 6.8/10